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In Scotland on Sunday today, Andrew Wilson says that the
economics of Scotland’s choice are quite easy to understand. He points out that
without oil we perform to the average of the UK and the best of any UK region
outside the South-East.
His plea is that
we hear much less about oil and its future, and a lot more about how badly it
has been managed by Westminster.
Scotland is the only oil producing region
anywhere in the world which has not even 1 cent of wealth fund to show for it.
Norway has $700 billion.
Thatcher used the vast amounts that our oil generated
to fund unemployment as she deindustrialised the UK economy, gave massive tax cuts to the rich and reduced
the income tax burden on others and wasted even more of it on nuclear weapons.
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According to the Daily Mail (usual warnings apply) the deputy prime minister of the Uk is not happy about paying his bar bill at his stately home, official country residence. Chevening is shared between Clegg and the Foreign Secretary. (We assume that they are not having to bunk up together as the place has over 150 rooms.) The rules are that when he is entertaining there as deputy prime minister, we pay for his food and drink and that of his invitees, however, when he uses the home for family and friends HE is supposed to pick up the tab. He apparently objects to this...
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Cameron is off on holiday again. He's gone to Portugal this time. That's nice for him. He's apparently having 4 holidays this year. Nice. Well, at least I suppose that it could be said that while he's away in Portugal or wherever else, he's not causing havoc in London.
Tris
ReplyDeleteNot surprised by the Olympics thing at all. Jobs for the boys and Seb Coe and no legacy outside of London. Just look at the legacy games at the weekend, the real athletes got a whole day on the BEEB and the less complete ones got a couple of hours on Channel 4. Sums up this country really, but we have a royal baby so it will all be fine.
I think the arguments about Oil need to change as they turn people off. The simple fact is that the propaganda over 40 years has worked and the YES campaign need to focus on maybe how much oil money has been wasted paying people to be unemployed, tax breaks to the wealthy , weapons of mass destruction etc. I also think more need to go into talking up the rest of the economy and the contributions that it makes to the economy as a whole. You would think that only oil men and women work in Scotland, that is a very dangerous impression to leave and voters will turn against the YES camp if they are not careful. But we have a royal baby.
Nick Clegg , is he still around, I was thinking his new strategy must have been to get people just to forget he ever existed at all. What a clown that man is, there must be liberals out there who don't like him but to be honest I don't know any. I have left honest non abusive comments on the Scottish Liberal blog but they never make it on, anything critical no matter how polite just don't get on that blog so I don't bother with it anymore. It sums up the liberal movement, if we don't like to hear it we will just ignore it ever existed. Clegg is a Tory as are most liberals, but they have a royal baby so is well in liberal land.
Cameron is a wanker, I'm sorry but he is. I just hope the Tories keep him as leader because he is popular down south, even with labour voters (no surprise) and is an asset to the YES campaign. I don't believe for one minute any of them give a crap about the poor and how many holidays they will get, but saying that Cameron and his wife probably think that unemployment until you are forced on workfare is a free holiday. They won't be upset though the royal cousin has arrived and I am sure they will be delighted buying a nice super expensive gift with our money.
I hate this country, but yes, at least we have a royal baby. Sorry for the long rant but I have a day off, might go baby gift shopping. Nah if I buy a St.Andrews cross they will think it's toilet paper.
Bruce
LOL... lovely rant, Bruce.
ReplyDeleteWell, I've seen quite a few articles recently pointing out that oil is the icing on the cake. (Ok, don't think of that literally or it might put you off cake.)
But you are right. It is an apparent flaw. And people do say... but what when the oil runs out (without thinking that the UK is highly dependent on the oil, and the question is pertinent even if we stay in the UK).
We must push the other things forward. Yesterday I think it was SoS had an article that pointed out the top universities, the renewables, the tourist industry (which will get a HUGE boost when we are independent; people always want to go see a new, cute, little country, we also have farming and fishing, massive water supplies (not to be sneezed at), and huge potential in computing and technology.
As for Cleggy, the multi millionaire... Nah, he lives in a world untouched by the kind of poverty that you and I see daily. Andrew Page (Scottish Liberal) and sometimes George Potter are the only ones I know who criticize him. Caron became so sycophantic over him and wee Wullie that I took her off the blog list. It was beginning to make me vomit to see her fawn over every tiny word of "wisdom" they uttered.
Cameron... yes, he's a marvellous asset to the yes campaign. "No" is Cameron and Darling (you can tell Darling by the white hair). That is what the UKOK future is. Londoncentric, the social season, aristocracy, the All England Club, MCC, Glyndebourne, the Boat Race... Pimms.
It is quite literally all foreign to me, and most Scots.
But yes, hallelujah. Unto us a child is born ...and the governance shall be upon his shoulders, or so said Handel. Oh well, it's not wee George's fault that he's been born. I'm gonna call him Alex anyway. Prince Alex. That should annoy them.
If you see anything nice in the shops get one for me to send him. No more than 99p though. These are hard times and we are all in it together...as you know.
Its all part of the over-encompassing lie isn't it, apparently the 'UK' has gained to the tune of 13 billion from olympics, which as we all know is rubbish.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile as the theft & fraud goes on and the immoral go about their business, a royal baby is waved in our faces and we're expected to feebly gurn at it instead of noticing the nasty stuff going on.
That is what Britain means to me, Cameron is just a shiny-suited marketing man, they all are down their. At least you know where you are with them.
Its Labour I keep coming back to, especially Scottish branch labour. How can they sleep at night? They know what's going on, they're the opposition twice over (in parliament and nationally if the feckless bastards actually took the time to stand up for their constituents.)
They'll never be forgiven, after 2014 after having successfully helped ensure a Yes vote, I hope many bloggers go on to help ensure those wankers are kicked out and kept out.
I fail to see how they can have benefitted to the tune of £13 billion.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see the REAL figures on what it cost and what came back...and most importantly where it was spent.
of course there were a fair few tourists in London for teh games, but far fewer than they anticipated, and as we say at the time there was a far smaller "footfall" in shopping areas like Oxford Street, as people avoided the inevitable crush on the antiquated transport system.
But Scotland made nothing out of it. And I have seen no legacy whatsoever.
Paying people redundancy money for what could never have been a long term job, is juts ludicrous.
By that token if we get a decorator in to do the house up we w3ill have to lay him off with redundancy at the end.
Did they pay redundancy to the stewards who only got a few weeks work?
Thought not.
Self self self.
Shiney suited Spivs that you would avoid if they approached you in the shopping mall.
As for Labour. They are traitors to their core support, because they found something more glamorous in the banking classes. Now that the banking classes have tired of them, they remind me of lovesick teenagers with spotty faces trying to win back the married woman who had a quick fling with them for a bit of rough.
I just hope they get what they deserve.
pa_broon74 If you think that the theft, fraud & corruption only affects the Westminster parliament then you are living in cloud cookoo land.
ReplyDeleteThe Scottish government, along with the other parties, are covering up for serious fraud and paedophilia in Scotland - it is just as bad up here and the SNP is just as bad. This country is running a totally illegal legal system just like most other countries with the exception of the countries we have been invading and sending terrorists into to bring into line. Same goes for our financial system set up by, and for the benefit of, the Vatican, Royalty and Elite Bankers and fleecing every single one of us to keep us poor and them filthy rich.
Funny thing is every one of us is at least a millionaire under this system but as I said it is not set up for our benefit - I have posted videos re this and the other things over at my blog Paisley Expressions.
Are the SNP or the other parties going to change this entire corrupt system for the benefit of the people - not on your nelly - these parties already know about this corrupt system and keep it because it suits their corrupt selves and because they are all controlled by these same elites. If you watch the last video on that post you will see that the elites have started the process of uniting the EU and US on their way to their New World Order - A One World Government. Anyone who thinks that there is going to be an independent Scotland or UK is off their head. The problem is not Scotland or the UK or any other country - it is the elites I have mentioned that are the problem and no fighting each other for things that are not going to happen are going to change that.
Too true Billy.
ReplyDeleteI once had a meal in the same restaurant as Alex Salmond. He was obviously too relaxed, as I spotted his true lizard skin poking out of the top of his shirt. The scales were obvious, once you got your eye in.
I'm pretty sure he was eating roasted children curry, not the Lamb Bhuna he ordered.
Deary Deary Me! What an intelligent comment - not. I don't accept the David Icke lizard stuff as I think that the 13 families that really run the world are as human as us. Mega amount of evidence as to these human elites and none as to the lizards. Then again nothing actually exists outside our heads as this is only a computer generated holographic universe that a German university has discovered the plasma grid that the light photons travel along like a plasma screen so who knows what is actually real.
DeleteYou will be saying that aliens do not exist either even though they have been proven to exist - well exist as much as we do in this hologram. Go watch The Starchild Skull - The New Evidence by Lloyd Pye where this skull has been proved scientifically by DNA to be (now)100% alien. Funny how the press and media have not reported on this - then again only about 3 people own 97% of all the press and media in the world now on behalf of the elite.
Modern humans have been created by aliens splicing their DNA with cavemen and all the evidence is actually in our DNA. Again go watch Lloyd Pye's Everything you know is wrong and try and prove him wrong.
Are you trying to say our country, and others, are not being run under an illegal legal system? Please enlighten us all as to why our governments are getting into massive debts to private bankers for printing our own money when they can print our money without owning anyone a penny? Please enlighten everyone as to who set this system up where most of our taxes go to pay this unearned debt and make these elites very rich at the expense of the people who would not have to pay ANY tax if the government just simply printed it's(our)own money without ANY debt.
Keep sticking by your corrupt political party cults at the expense of the people and keep up the not very intelligent comments and wallow in your ignorance as to what is really going on.
Following that logic, it isn't Scotland but Shetlands oil. If Scots vote for separation, Shetland ought be given right to remain inside the UK.
ReplyDeleteLoyalist shows a complete lack of logic when international law says they will only have rights up to the 12 mile limit as you have been told before numerous occasions. Could do much better especially by a supposed university grad.
DeleteActually Shetland sas given an oil fund, Dean. But when you are talking about "independence" I think you probably have to stick yo countries, rather than islands. Because if you say Shetland can have the right to opt out of Scotland (and that is a dodgy one as Shetland was a gift from the King of Norway to the king of Scots, in lieu of dowry) then why not any other island including those in the firth of Forth or Clyde, and if them, why not a county, Fife or Perthshire, and then why not a town, or a village or a housing estate or...
DeleteBy the same token if you are going to have patches of the UK all over Scotland, why would some of the counties or towns in England or Wales, or even NI not want to join Scotland. So maybe Devon, or Merthyr Tydfil, or Stourbridge would opt to leave England and become part of Scotland.
If all that is going on can my street please become part of Monaco?
I actually don't think Shetland will want to do that, although the cabinet has been in Lerwick this week discussing how the islands can have more autonomy independence or none, from Edinburgh.
If for no other reason, I think that that will be because an exclave, under international law, has no rights to the coastal waters of the sovereign state as CH points out. In short Shetland has no oil.
That daft Liberal blokey, Tavish the Viking made rather a fool of himself over that.
Dean,
Deletenow you are just embarrassing yourself.
You seem to be on the same downward trajectory as Scotland's other erstwhile party political tribalists, now cruelly exposing themselves as the simple unthinking believers in Union that they have always been. Ie Union first, 'deeply held political and moral beliefs' second (or third, or fourth).
Are you still currently Labour by the way, or have you decided to give the LibDems a go on your way back to the Conservative and Unionists? Round and around and around the Union totem pole you and the betterNO campaign run, going nowhere.
One last thing to think about Dean. The Balkanisation of Britain, far from being a threat from us dasdardly separatists, is in fact being considered and toyed with, as it always has been, by your beloved Unionist State.
Whether in the form of the Ulster plantations of the 17th century, or the partition of Ireland in the 20th Century and now, this hamfisted Idea of a belated Shetland/Faslane rUK enclave. It's always been used as a tool to try and hold this unnatural multinational elitist entity that is the UK together for just a little longer. Cobbling together for the financial gain of a tiny elite, at any cost to it's people, has always been the 'British way'
Look in the mirror Dean. Think carefully. This is morally dangerous stuff you are pushing, and for what?
Braco
I reckon, Braco, that they will do anything it takes to hold on to the idea of a "great" state, leaders of the world, in a key position to influence mighty decisions made by the great powers.
ReplyDeleteI think it's all a little laughable. Well it's a lot laughable. The UK is America's gofor.
However, I think it is fair enough for someone to change political allegiance over the years, as Dean and many others have done. Especially this is true when it is the political party or parties that have done most of the moving.
Some readers here were staunch Labour supporters in the days when Labour was what it said on the tin... a left of centre party concerned with the interests of the working classes... a party of which such as Clem Attlee would be proud.
They moved to SNP or Scottish Socialist when Labour drifted to the right in the search for a way to remain relevant in a post Thatcher, post industrial, post trades unions, Londoncentric, bankercentric, greedy, grubby little country.
There are, then, Tories who found that Labour had actually taken over the ground that their party used to hold, while they (the Tories) had been pushed further to the right by a combination of there being nowhere else to go, and the SPIV nature of the modern Thatcherite, lacking class, or any kind of compassion (and certainly with no noblesse oblige!).
But I agree that Dean, and the other Labour supporters of the union would look very carefully at what they are voting for.
Post referendum, if the answer is no, just what kind of Scotland will be have? A socialist one? Not a chance. It will be a Scotland that suits the voters of the South of England.
Already councillors of all colours in England have demanded an end to Scotland getting more per head than the rest of the UK (although this is rather a false notion, and they fail to address the fact that we also contribute a great deal more than that).
The English want their own parliament which means that a new form of funding will have to be found.
Whatever way it pans out I bet we shall have less money than we do now. We may have powers taken away. We may have a Labour/Liberal "executive" in Scotland which will (as it has done before) ape the London government's decisions...sell off our water to Serco, Atos, Capita, Santander and then dismantle our health service in the same way that they are doing in England (Note that NHS Direct's 111 has gone broke and pulled out of their contract, or that the old people's homes all went broke, and that the East coast railway line went broke...all of which at no cost to them and great cost to us).
How many other ghastly punishments will they mete out to us for having dared to want to run things differently.
And you can bet that they will change the rules so we can NEVER do it again, possibly by insisting that our laws pass through the House of Lords, which they refuse to bring out of the 18th century, and in which no SNP people serve.
Think about it guys.
Thanks for the reply Tris, I couldn't agree more.
DeleteI have no problem at all with folk changing their political party for strongly held moral or political beliefs, in fact to be fair to Dean he has taken the stick that comes with openly crossing the floor (including my cheap shot).
It's just that as far as politics in Scotland is now concerned, the leaderships of each of the three main Unionist parties have basically decided to fore go normal party politics in order to unite behind the only real thing that matters to them, saving their Westminster stipends.
As far as I can see the betterNO campaign and it's supporters (that's you again Dean) are parroting the same negativity and toeing the same campaign tactical line of spreading fear and disinformation. This, no matter that they were all previously supposedly passionate Labour, Tory or LibDem to the core, of course.
I think you wasted your time changing parties Dean as their leaderships have done it for you.
The YES campaign is at least a group of folk who hold very different beliefs in the political way forward for an Indy Scotland, but have come together temporarily in order to campaign for a shared short term objective.
They all still happily spout off about their own deeply held political beliefs and not one has been asked to (or would) compromise on how they go about convincing the public of the reasons that THEY hold for wanting an Indy Scotland. (Eg Denis Canavan is still a Republican, The Greens are still greens, the SSP are still socialists and I am still anti political party).
It's just that the MSM choose if, or if not to report these views depending on their usefulness in the next 'YES Camp Split!' headline undermining another 'YESnp Campaign run by Dictator Salmond' narrative.
So anyway, I just wanted to have a go at Dean for being an exemplar of betterNO, by happily abandoning his previously pro European supporting stance by happily rejecting the prospect a Pro European Indy Scotland in favour of a campaign for the Union which now promises an IN/OUT referendum on Europe to a Westminster dominated UK being wagged senseless by UKIP!
His Shetland shite was simply the last straw, sorry.
Braco
Happily, happily, happily....... oops.
DeleteVery happily indeed!
DeleteLOL Braco.
ReplyDeleteI think all opinions on here are valid, and I guess everyone is up for taking some stick. To be fair to our two regular unionists, Dean and Niko, both do that with good grace and come back again.
I like that very much.
I think Shetland and Orkney and the Western Isles are on to a good thing with the SNP. The government has promised to look into ways to give them more autonomy.
That's a really good thing. The northern isles are really Norse in their origins and they face different problems from those of us on the mainland (not least of which the arctic weather). I have a mate from Fair Isle who says that it actually rains every single day there.
The Western islands, again have different issues and are bilingual with a Gaelic culture. Their weather can be pretty dodgy too.
They need to be able to legislate for these differences.
Tavish recently said that they might want to stay in the UK, presumably because he, like Dean, hadn't taken into consideration the fact that they wouldn't get a penny from the oil, (except of course that a lot of it comes to land there, and presumably the Uk could charge us vast amounts to process it). They'd have to take into consideration that we might, in that case, get Norway to do the processing while we built our own ports in Caithness.
I don't think the Shetlanders actually want to do that in any case.
Better NO. I like that. It does personify them, doesn't it?
I would love to see a completely decentralised Scottish state, along the lines of the Swiss Cantons. Local, democratic, participative power is definitely the best way to keep on top of any political class!
DeleteImagine Glasgow Labour had to answer for the mess of some of the constituencies they have presided over, without being able to blame it on the Tories (or now the SNP)!
Braco
By the way I really enjoy your site, so thanks min!
Well, if you were looking for a way to organise your country Switzerland wouldn't be an altogether bad example to follow.
DeleteThey cope with 4 languages (and cultures), extreme weather, mountainous country and yet the whole thing goes like clockwork (OK cuckoo clock work).
Good point about Glasgow Labour.
Thanks. I'm glad you like the site. And you are very welcome. :)
Smug Tory stooge.
ReplyDeleteLOL Irony or what, as Roseanna says.
DeleteBreaking news.
ReplyDeletelol...
Delete